Sunday, January 27, 2013

We danced again tonight at a celebratory dinner honoring our
final night in the Dominican Republic.

Ashton Brooks, Annie Pierpoint

The Very Rev. Ashton Brooks, the dean of
the seminary who has been away on sick leave for two months, returned yesterday
and celebrated the Eucharist this morning. He was there at the party to meet
all of us and to thank us for being here.

I wrote this post on Facebook today:

This morning I met a man at
church. Most of his family was killed in the Haitian earthquake three years
ago. Nine months ago he came to the Dominican Republic looking for work so he
can send money to his wife and son back home. He has not yet found a job.

Next I met a man who came to
the D.R. from Haiti fifteen years ago. He has been looking all that time for a
job and a place to live. He has found neither.

Both men spoke with palpable
anger, frustration, and sadness. Both men insisted that they are discriminated
against because they are Haitian. I don't doubt it. I imagine that many
Dominicans would say, "We don't even have the resources to take care of
our own people, let alone those who cross the border. Go home." All people
need the same basic things. What happens when there are not enough of those
things to go around?

It is truly a tragic
situation, and I can't think of a single thing I can do about it. But today, I
allowed two men to tell me their stories. I did my best to honor their stories,
to withhold any naive advice that might come to mind, and to thank them for telling
me about their lives. I can pray for them, and I don't know exactly what that
will accomplish, but I will do it anyway because I can't imagine not doing so.

The needs are great, the solutions elusive.

Tonight at dinner a couple folks who had read my post pointed
out to me that the church has been doing everything it can to help these two
men. I do want to make sure that my telling of their stories doesn’t reflect
badly on Epifanía: the church is not just standing by while people suffer.

In one big way, the situation here is exactly the same as
the situation in the United States. Helping people is not as easy as giving
someone a fish, or even teaching someone how to fish. Teaching someone to fish
is not easy. It requires patience, forbearance, and even, sometimes, the
ability to say, “I’ve done all I can do and this person still isn’t learning.”
In these situations, we must continue to pray, and we must continue to look for
opportunities to be of help to a person’s growth in creative ways. I believe
that Christians are called to never, ever give up on anyone. This is some of
the hardest work people can do.

The other reality, of course, is that of limited resources.
Epifanía feeds fifty people a week. That’s not even a drop in the bucket. When
there are no government agencies to provide public assistance, the churches’
work is even more important. As I wrote in yesterday’s post, you can help in
the Dominican Republic, too. And, of course, there are many places in the world
that need our help. We have more to give than we think we do. We can stretch
farther than we believe we can.

Thank you so much for following our blog. In the morning we will
pack and head to the airport. I probably won’t blog tomorrow because we’ll be
en route. But who knows? There may be more blog posts still to come,
chronicling our journey and its aftermath. All four of us are required to write
a post-trip paper, and those of us who received funding from a certain source
are required to write an additional paper that describes how we believe
Virginia Theological Seminary will be changed as a result of our pilgrimage. We
shall see. And I, for one, am excited to find out!

Saturday, January 26, 2013

What to say about our final Saturday? It was another slow
one. Sarah and Annie left for their respective churches in the early afternoon.
Kristin and I started gathering thoughts for our final papers. Tonight Kristin,
Charlie, Karen and I went out to eat, and we had enough leftovers that lunch
tomorrow is covered.

I’ve been working with Charlie Nakash to build a Facebook
presence, in English, for the work of the Episcopal Church in the Dominican
Republic. You can check it out and like it here. They could always use your
donations and your personal involvement! For instance:

- By digging wells and installing filtration systems, we can help stop the spread of disease among the most vulnerable populations.

- By training young people to do construction work, we can equip the next generation to become expert workers.

- By providing sewing machines, we can enable the crafting of fine vestments and altar pieces that can be sold to churches in the United States for decent wages.

You and your church can participate in this important work. You can hold fundraisers, dedicate a portion of your mission budget, or even send teams of pilgrims. In recent years the Episcopal Church has hosted medical teams (there's one here right now), construction teams, and Vacation Bible School teams. Together we can make a difference in many people's lives, not only in the immediate moment, but for generations to come.

We hear that the dean of the seminary, the Very Rev. Ashton
Brooks, has returned from sick leave today and that we might get to meet him
tomorrow. Here’s hoping. In the meantime, we're already beginning to pack and look forward to returning home on Monday evening!

Friday, January 25, 2013

I’m sure, dear readers, that you have been anxiously awaiting news of the potholes. I am pleased to report that I have been an epic failure at re-paving the roadways of the Dominican Republic. I will leave them just as I found them – ragged, dangerous, and full of trash.

The Annie from January 7th would react to this news with much weeping and gnashing of teeth. She would declare the whole trip a failure because she hadn’t achieved this ridiculous goal and many others. I have not fed all the children, rid the government of all its corruption, memorized every Spanish word, or started a sex-positive feminist revolution. Go figure.

There was no sex-positive revolution in thisRoman Catholic catechism textbook ...

So what have I been up to? What are the deep, poetic conclusions to tie up with a pretty bow and save for future sermons? I dunno. I mean, I’ve been talking to my boyfriend over Skype a lot, which to a perfectionist like me means I’ve been ignoring the Dominican people and not practicing my Spanish. But as Andrew sweetly and gently reminded me, our nightly check-ins afforded me an opportunity to process my experiences. He observed that I have “allowed real transformation” in myself, and ended with: “I don’t know how you would have been able to do anything more than what you have done.”

But I digress. The deep, poetic conclusion I’ve reached (with the help of others) is that over the last three weeks I have taken a first step. It’s been more like a first date, actually. My initial interactions with the Dominican Republic were awkward, but we both approached the table with open hearts and we got to know each other a little bit. I would definitely go on a second date.

In other words, beloved Episcopop readers, my grand achievement is that I let in as much of the Dominican Republic as my little heart could handle. And—miracle of miracles—I set aside my own agenda for a little while and listened. As soon as I quit griping about potholes and my privilege, I met wonderful people. I started wondering how I could serve them.

I didn’t master every word of Spanish, resolve socio-economic inequality, start a revolution, or build a hospital. Rather, I have utterly failed to meet my own expectations. Thanks be to God!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Kristin is gaining strength each day from the bug that has
really got her. She is markedly better today.

Sarah and I are down to our final Spanish lesson tomorrow.
Our maestra Patrícia is trying to get through as much content as she can, but obviously
it’ll be up to us to practice once we leave this place. I have been envious of
the amount of Spanish my classmates have been able to speak. It has been a
disadvantage for me not to have begun quite as far along, but it has still been
a great experience and a great way to get over some of the early humps in
the learning process. Now I’m struggling to sort through the various verb
tenses and memorize my first few irregular verb conjugations.

Tonight Kristin and I made dinner: a chicken-veggie-ginger
stir fry with rice. Sarah is working hard to translate into Spanish the sermon
she will preach this Sunday. And we’re wrapping up loose ends in preparation to
say goodbye on Monday.

Luis brought his laptop to dinner and put on music para bailar! Luis, Annie, Sarah, Juan
Pastor, Tati and I traded partners around to the merengue and bachata. The
dances are very simple but quite exhausting. We may dance more tomorrow night. Annie wants to teach them some country line dancing. That should be ... interesting!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

This
morning I refilled my vitamin dispenser from the Tupperware container into
which I had poured a mix of vitamins before my departure. I hadn’t wanted to
pack the individual bottles. I felt excitement at the dwindling number of pills
in the pile. It indicated that I would soon be returning home.

SPLAT!(photo by Kristin Saylor, mango-lover extraordinaire)

I
haven’t been homesick like this since being an exchange student in Germany in
1977 – so, a long time. I breathed in deeply and imagined being with my family
again. As I thought about hot baths, soft-boiled eggs, mashed potatoes and all
the other things that I missed about my life in Alexandria, I heard it: the leaden thump of a
mango falling to the ground from the 200-year-old mango tree in the courtyard
outside our apartment.

Santo Domingo: a very noisy city

I’ll
miss going outside in the morning to pick up my breakfast fruit from the
ground. That led me to think about the milk. The milk, sold at room
temperature, pasteurized and in cartons, is sooo
delicious: exceptionally creamy and a little sweet. Then I started thinking
about the rooster. In the middle of a congested city of millions, each morning,
after I wake up I hear him in the distance. He is not loud enough to have
awakened me. Indeed, all the sounds of the city compete with each other to form
a kind of white noise that lulls me to sleep each night.

But
back to the rooster, my gentle reminder each day that it is indeed time to put
on my alb and go to Morning Prayer. I’ll miss the mangos, the milk, the
rooster, not to mention the people. As soon as we complete a friendly greeting
of ‘Salud’ or ‘Hola’ or ‘Como estas,’ we are friends and we hug. During the
peace at church, everyone hugs. It can take half an hour. When you can’t reach
someone for a hug, you embrace the other’s forearm with your hand. I’ll miss
that.

I’ll
also miss worshiping outside at Adolfo’s church in Boca Chica. I’ll miss the
fact that inside isn’t really inside because there are no glass window panes. I’ll
miss the rotating shutters on the open windows that keep out the sun far better
than curtains woulf, but on the other hand they don’t keep out mosquitoes. All
of these wonderings have made me realize that I’m not so much homesick for the
U.S.A. as I am for my family and friends – my community. I wonder, what would
it be like if they were here too?

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Vanel gave seconds to the first person who asked and wassuddenly besieged. Lazarus' Basket is a difficult ministryto witness, let alone to sustain. There is so much need.

Well, this time Kristin is down for the count. She slept most
of the day away. We hope she feels better soon!

I myself didn’t feel very well after getting sunburned at
the beach yesterday. After Eucharist and the Lazarus’ Basket feeding ministry, I
slept some of the morning and rested up.

After lunch and through the afternoon,
I helped Charlie Nakash develop a flyer describing his mission work and a Facebook
presence for the Episcopal Church in the Dominican Republic. Like
it!

Those of us from VTS have opted to lead Evening Prayer all
week. Sarah led it today, and I played guitar on a Spanish version of “Let All
Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.”

Adolfo y Annie

After that our friend Adolfo (a Dominican VTS grad, now a
priest here) took Annie and me out to this movie.
It was a silly, predictable, slapstick flick, but it was wonderful for two big
reasons: (1) it was 100% Dominican, and (2) being the kind of film it was, I
didn’t need to understand much Spanish at all to have some idea of what was
going on. It was sweet and charming as well, and I recommend it for Spanish learners
(not that it’s at all available in the U.S., or even listed on IMDB).

The cinema was located in an opulent mall that included many
American chain stores. Annie described it as “a good look at secular Dominican
culture.” We ate in the food court before the film, and I finally got to satisfy
my craving for Asian food.